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Lately I’ve made an effort to decrease my manga intake. Ideally this is so I could focus on the many novel length books I’ve purchased; however, that seems to be still to come as I find myself still trickling manga my way. The last manga I picked up though I don’t regret and that is Future Diary Vol. 5 This is a manga series that was pushed very strongly by Tokyopop, and has almost unofficially become one of the books that BBAMAJAM the club follows. As with previous Future Diary’s, we have a mix of action, twists, and general freaky behavior. I loved 5 and only regret that I’ll have to wait so long for the next volume, as is the case with manga.

2. 82nd Academy Awards

I have never watched an awards show in my life before the Academy Awards on Sunday. Generally that’s because I knew very little about who might be getting the awards, or in the case with music awards especially they were going to (and usually do) award some horrific ‘artists’ who really shouldn’t even be associated with music. Really I think the only reason I watched the Academy Awards is because I could work on my laptop while watching, but I did find them actually quite fun. Martin and Baldwin were great hosts, thanks to the expanded Best Picture list I’d actually watched some of the films (like 2 maybe), and thanks to such antics akin to Stiller’s Avatar get-up, Neil Patrick Harris’s kooky song, and other bits of fun I was entertained. I don’t see myself watching other awards shows, but I may watch this one next year and now I know I have some more movies to check out.

3. Censorship

Perhaps my favorite part about Twitter is how, especially following as many folks as I do, I can sit back and watch arguments spread through the “twitter-sphere”. This is very true with the anime community, led by ANN columnists, anime bloggers/podcasters, the occasional industry rep., & the most die hard of fans. This last debate was about censorship, specifically Funimation’s choice to censor their release of Dance in the Vampire Bund (with permission from the JP company). My two-cents is that: 1) I’m anti-censorship and 2) I don’t understand the point of this move.

Indeed, I fall from the cloth that says “I may disagree with what you say but I will fight for your right to say it”. Of course, if anyone’s been around the internet then you know some people take the opportunity to say and show the wildest things, but that’s their prerogative (excluding any illegal actions of course). Moving on to my 2nd point, I understand why some companies like 4Kids try to censor their material, generally for TV, but Funimation isn’t likely going to show Vampire in the Bund on TV. Even if they did they could have the TV version and the uncut version, as Viz has done with Naruto. Furthermore, this is the company that just released RIN and ‘rescued’ When They Cry from Geneon. If you’ve seen either of those two shows then I think you know it’d be difficult to really show much worse; yet here Funimation is interested in self-censoring their newest acquisition.

This issue has already been quite divisive, but ultimately I think we’ll know who wins/loses based on Funimation sales of the anime itself.